Vandyke in Maine

From Seal Harbor, Me., a little patriarch issued last week, a political bull. Dr. Henry Vandyke, bewhiskered Presbyterian divine, poet of buds and burgeonings, onetime ambassador to the Netherlands, spending a reflective summer in Maine, found his thoughts flurried by the presidential campaign. There were elements in the political scene that disturbed his saintly composure. A storm of dissatisfaction arose. Finally he released it with orderly thunder in a letter to William Church Osborn, director of finance in New York State for the Democratic National Committee.

In empurpled prose, Dr. Vandyke described the "overt fulminations and convert whisperings" of an anti-Catholic cabal, claimed that if Mr. Hoover were elected he would owe a large measure of votes to religious prejudice. This he said would be blasphemy against hard-won U. S. religious tolerance, "a sacred and undying fire on the high altar of the constitution . . . never yet has a national election in the United States been determined on such grounds." With bombardment of all viperish agencies of intolerance he reached an orotund climax:

"This is 'nullification' with a vengeance!

It affects not a mere matter of personal habits and diet, but a national principle of peace and union. It proclaims a Jihad, a religious war, in the heart of America. . . . Virtuous and lovely ladies will say, with horror on their faces, 'Surely you think a Catholic is an impossible candidate!' A few weeks ago a proud professor at Princeton asked me in raucous tones, 'Would you vote for a Catholic as President?' His look of contempt was unmistakable, and I was tempted to answer, 'Even if there were no other reason, beloved brother, it might lead me to vote for a good Catholic just to shake your self-complacent Phariseeism and maintain America's honest faith in real religious liberty.'

"It is time to blow a trumpet to awaken the sleepers. The Palladium of the Republic is attacked by secret and open foes. It is in danger, trembling in its marble hall. The spiritual call to arms goes out to every man and woman. Defend the religious liberty of America."